Dictionary of Battles / From the Earliest Date to the Present Time

by Thomas Benfield Harbottle

Roncesvalles.

Fought 778 between the Franks, under Charlemagne, and the Basques and Gascons, under Loup II. The army of Charlemagne, retreating from Spain, was caught in the defile of Roncesvalles, in the Pyrenees, and the rearguard was totally annihilated, among those who fell being the famous Paladin, Roland.